My fiance and I are new homebuyers as well and just purchased a house in Columbia, MD. If you are looking for a nice suburbia area, then definitely check it out. Columbia was also recently ranked by CNN as the second best place in the US to live for over all quality of life.
Here's a great home builder that you don't want to rule out if you're looking for a new home...my son has owned three in South Riding, VA that they built......
I've lived all over Maryland, including Baltimore City and the Eastern Shore, Ocean City, Hagerstown, and Cumberland. I would never recommend that anyone even drive through Baltimore City, much less do what we call "live" there. The public services are a joke, the taxes are insane - especially the property taxes on their rapidly evaporating tax base (the majority of the city subsists on some sort of gov't/taxpayer hand out), it's incredibly unsafe, the local gov't hassles the crap out of the few left that do pay any taxes, and did I mention it's just plain unsafe? It's also one of the filthiest places in America, and most of the residents don't really seem to give a good scratch. Just sit and watch as people leave a local convenience store some time. It's as if they would rather throw their wrappers on the street than use the trash can right in front of them. Definitely the most uncivilized area in the State.
West is nice, except that it's been over run by the Washingtonians trying to escape the high prices that follow their ridiculous Federal job overpayment. They also brought their traffic and infrastructure issues with them, and the State just can't keep up. Still a lot of beauty and open spaces, but it's shrinking fast.
Further west is still pretty nice and quiet, but you might as well be in West Virginia. Jobs are real tough and the weather can be quite a challenge, especially if a couple of inches of slush freak you out in Baltimore.
Eastern Shore can be awesome if you like some room to stretch and enjoy hunting and growing your own food. Life can be a little challenging due to the travel distances, so a car is always a must, but the rest is actually a lot cheaper in my experience. Nothing like living next to where the food is harvested, and being close to the ocean without having to worry about being washed out to sea in the next n'oreaster is nice, so I'd vote for anything close to Delaware's tax free shopping, but not on the fragile sand spit that is Ocean City. I breathed a great sigh of relief after I sold my house there following a big 'cane. Definitely a sphincter tightening moment. Coming inland buys you a lot more and gives you a nice buffer, but the Ocean is still "just up the road a piece", ( Eastern Shore slang for any place within a half hour's drive of wherever you are). There's always work around there for people that understand what the word means, and a couple of deer in the freezer and some vegetables from the garden go a long way toward keeping the budget low. The Bay used to offer up quite a nice bounty as well, but now that we've managed to completely befoul that I don't trust anything caught out of those waters. At least the Ocean bays get flushed regular.
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"By this means government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft." - John Maynard Keynes
My fiance and I are new homebuyers as well and just purchased a house in Columbia, MD. If you are looking for a nice suburbia area, then definitely check it out. Columbia was also recently ranked by CNN as the second best place in the US to live for over all quality of life.
I owned a restaurant in Columbia and did business there for years. Members of my family helped build Wilde Lake and Harper's Choice, and I will say that CNN's opine on anything is total crap. Where do ya think they live? It ain't Howard County I can assure you of that.
Rouse's dream of mixing Section 8 housing with middle class and upper middle class homes to help the hard work ethic rub off has been an abject failure, and so as the blight continues to spread, the planned Utopia will continue to crumble. I will say that Columbia works harder than any jurisdiction to try and keep their real crime as quiet as possible. Just imagine for a moment what a wonderful time the hood rats have hiding amongst the countless trees and forests. If you live there and still think it's nice. well good for you, you probably believe what politicians say as well.
Over the last 20 years there has been a significant and palpable decline in the quality of life there. Now compared to some place like D.C. or Baltimore City, it's a veritable Garden of Eden, but generally - over priced, too expensive and very highly over rated. Drive through Oakland Mills or Harper's Farm on a summer night and open your eyes. Even the local coffee shops have been plagued by smash and grabs where their whole store fronts have been destroyed so the crooks could steal a register in the middle of the night. Gangs of illegals have made an impact everywhere from Ellicott City to Jesup, and all points in between. Like I said. They do whatever they can to keep the squelch turned well down, to try and maintain the facade, but the emperor has no clothes. Their schools used to rate very highly as well, but of course that's in a State where cheating on tests is now an institution among administrators.
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"By this means government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft." - John Maynard Keynes
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